Surface Cellars:

[Gluestick]

I wonder whether anyone has any information on the concept of the surface cellar?

Bit of a misnomer, actually as they are meant to be semi-sunk in the ground.

Our originally 200 year old farmhouse obviously had a cellar. I suspect it was underneath what is now the Salon.

I understand that it was quite common around 1900, to fill these in with rubble and cement, owing to damp and water ingress, which I can understand since the plot slopes down to the house and in any case is elevated considerably from the road.

I plan to build a semi-sunk cellar in the garden, behind a workshop. I believe that these are called Sous Surraines or something similar. Can't find the word either!

I hav seen on surface cave and it worked well. The concept is to sink it down circa 1.5 metres, leave the earth floor and cover with gravel, super-insulate the walls and ceiling and provide cross draughts of air with considerable insulation. When it is hot, the humidity can be raised by simply watering the floor! Which should also lower the ambient temperature.

Any further ideas, comments please? [blink]

 

[chris pp]

If you construct it properly there should be no need to water the floor, there should be sufficient moisture at an enclosed 1.5 metres, also it is a "cool" idea to turf the roof, this doesn't have to be just grass and the root structures keep the temperature down, obviously for this you need to bank up the sides if it is proud of the ground, which I should imagine it will be?

Chris

[Gluestick]

Thanks for that, Chris.

Whilst I like the concept of your turfing idea, sadly, I don't think it would be viable, as the plan is to build the surface cellar on the back of the existing workshop, thus the earth cover would allow damp to ingress the back wall.

Suppose I could fix an impermeable membrane on the wall firstly, though.........?

Whilst I would love a large cellar, the concept is to buy most of our good wine forwards and drink after three to four years, so I only need a reasonably small area in total. Wish it could be much more! [B]

The place I saw was inside a garage! Built of parpaings, it was surprisingly cool even in Summer and the bottles of white the owner showed me were nicely cool, too.

 

[Fred]

I've been considering a similar project - except that I want to dig a completely sunken cellar in the garden and top it off with a green roof. I am assuming that if I insulate it enough the temperature fluctuations will be low enough to allow me to store wine(I am looking to purchase a property near Tours so it can still get quite cold in the winter).

I have found a detail (Example 1) on this basement waterproofing site which is obviously intended for a much larger basement. I could probably get away with some more rudimentary waterproofing as a little damp in the cellar won't harm the wine.

Another website that I have found useful is the British Earth Shetlering Association.Although it doesn't have much technical info it gives some good ideas about what can be done.

[Cassis]

I don't know if this helps, but the rear wall (approx 12 m long) of our small barn is completely underground and the front wall is above ground, the barn being built into a slope.  It has a terracotta tile roof.  The walls are about 70cm thick, stone.  The barn is divided in two by a 50cm thick brick wall running front to rear (approx. 7.5m long).  One half has an upper floor/ceiling (making that side two stories) constructed at the height of the walls (approx. 2.5m above floor level).  The floor is beaten earth.  We find that the ground floor of that side, about 45sqm, keeps cool even in the hottest summer days.  Nor does it drop below freezing in winter.  So the principles you are talking about certainly work in practice, even though the barn was not built with this in mind.  We do know that it was used in the past for cider storage - you can see the barrel marks in places on the floor, from being rolled on their rims.